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The golden age of MMO's consisted of the pre WoW genre where you had to work your ass off for what you had and the rewards were Playing with your friends and sharing in the hardships of the game.

When you have to camp a mob for day after day to get a rare item that is still viable 50 levels later the feeling of accomplishment when people compliment you on your gear is priceless especially between people that take gaming as seriously as you do.

That is missing in todays mmo's of instant gratification.

Vanilla WoW was still tough to be at the top of the game and took dedication and thus garnering the admiration of less serious gamers which propelled them toward their goal of being that decked out dude running the toughest dungeons. Then WoW started catering to the instant gratification crack babies that don't belong to the genre.

The point is the genre changed and the games we loved IE UO/Everquest/FFXI are gone. It saddens us.

This was said beautifully, The accomplishment factor was huge back pre-wow. Now these games just hand you things, no real time and effort required. To get to max level there was time and dedication now in a month or two you are finished and on to the next one. Camping mobs and required partying were what made these games fun, where you could look at a character and judging by his level and gear you could appreciate him for what he has accomplished. Now anyone with a week off of work can get that same thing, but like grndzro states its the "instant gratification" factor.

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The golden age of MMO's consisted of the pre WoW genre where you had to work your ass off for what you had and the rewards were Playing with your friends and sharing in the hardships of the game.

When you have to camp a mob for day after day to get a rare item that is still viable 50 levels later the feeling of accomplishment when people compliment you on your gear is priceless especially between people that take gaming as seriously as you do.

That is missing in todays mmo's of instant gratification.

Vanilla WoW was still tough to be at the top of the game and took dedication and thus garnering the admiration of less serious gamers which propelled them toward their goal of being that decked out dude running the toughest dungeons. Then WoW started catering to the instant gratification crack babies that don't belong to the genre.

The point is the genre changed and the games we loved IE UO/Everquest/FFXI are gone. It saddens us.

You know, I agree almost entirely, but I would not dare suggest we take away the instant gratification games for those who enjoy it. The market just went a little hay-wire and forgot the roots they were built on. But like other industries, sometimes they make a bad call and need to return to their roots. They obviously all jumped on this bandwagon WAY to fast.

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Originally posted by madazz

You know, I agree almost entirely, but I would not dare suggest we take away the instant gratification games for those who enjoy it. The market just went a little hay-wire and forgot the roots they were built on. But like other industries, sometimes they make a bad call and need to return to their roots. They obviously all jumped on this bandwagon WAY to fast.

The market of video games is fast changing. I don't think holding onto the "roots" is a virtue. Do you still want to play text only games? Most don't. That is the root of computer games, you know.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by madazz

You know, I agree almost entirely, but I would not dare suggest we take away the instant gratification games for those who enjoy it. The market just went a little hay-wire and forgot the roots they were built on. But like other industries, sometimes they make a bad call and need to return to their roots. They obviously all jumped on this bandwagon WAY to fast.

The market of video games is fast changing. I don't think holding onto the "roots" is a virtue. Do you still want to play text only games? Most don't. That is the root of computer games, you know.

Text is for whippersnappers :)

I prefer roots that mean "imaginative" and "thought trough", as opposed to the current "throw random things at it and see what sticks" approach.

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there are a few players who can pick an MMo in 2003, and in 2013 still be playing it. (props to eve for displaying when a character was created.)

there are many players who could never play an MMO for more than a few months.

the first group oesn't have much different expectations.

the second group has very different expectations in the sense that it HAS them. Back 'then' they didn't know MMOs exist.

add them up and you get something like 80% hype-and-unhappiness.

reality is that most people in this genre never belonged here. they got dragged in by advertising or word of mouth and have been spinning around trying to land somewhere to call home. For many it never happened.

worse, the market reacted to them trying to create them a home. It's what ended the Golden Age. They never did and never will have a home. How much an mmo twists and turns trying to get them one is not relevant to them...only to the others who might find themselves evicted.

does that answer the topic? expectatinos were lower and coming from fewer people. now they're high, coming from many.

but when you golden age mmo gamers get a game that you all been screaming about, you turn your back on it and dont show support. (Darkfall comes to mind, Vanguard, even your precious GW2.)

Funny... I had a home in MMORPGs called SWG. That is, until SOE took the "Welcome" rug from underneath existing players. We've been clamoring about that since 2005.

I know that it's never coming back, but we're still complaining about that series of unfortuate events for more than a handful of years now, still going.

THAT is support for the game, at least the game that existed before the massive changes. Don't be going around talking like "Golden Age MMO Gamers" don't support their titles.

Also, just to get this out of the way, there's a difference in supporting a game that we've been playing or clamored for, and supporting a game that was drastically changed from what its original vision was.

Also, as a consumer, I don't buy into half-a**ed products, regardless of what we're talking about. I have better things to spend my precious time and hard earned money on.

"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)

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The MMOs back in the day didn't have any expectations. I think the problem with modern MMOs is WoW. I truly do. WoW was the last game that exceeded what the community was expecting. I remember when they first announced it, I was expecting something like an EQ clone with warcraft lore in it. While it did kinda do that, while playing it, WoW didn't feel like EQ. The UI was very well done (and players themselves could customize every single bit of it). I never felt lost in the game either. In older MMOs they gave you a map that you had to open every few minutes to get your heading, unless you were following a road. I ran into orgrimmar for the first time and was speechless. I ran into Thrall, Vol'jin, Rexxar, and was speechless. It was what everyone wanted since Warcraft Orcs and Humans, and then some. The only problem I had with the launch was the servers crashing for the overflow of players, but it was still so great I sat at my computer waiting for Blizz to bring them back up so I could play for my 5 minutes until I got disconnected again lol.

Edit: And Blizz did something that no other company today would probably do. They gave away free time because the servers were down.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by madazz

You know, I agree almost entirely, but I would not dare suggest we take away the instant gratification games for those who enjoy it. The market just went a little hay-wire and forgot the roots they were built on. But like other industries, sometimes they make a bad call and need to return to their roots. They obviously all jumped on this bandwagon WAY to fast.

The market of video games is fast changing. I don't think holding onto the "roots" is a virtue. Do you still want to play text only games? Most don't. That is the root of computer games, you know.

Sticking to your roots is not always a good thing. I am not implying that we should have never changed or advanced MMO's, I was attempting to imply that they have gone to far from the original path for ALL MMO's. They saw something that garnered attention and almost everyone jumped on that one path. Basically, IMO it is totally acceptable that WoW has a bunch of clones, I just wish that some went a different path. Thankfully that is starting to happen, but we are only just at the beginning.

Would of been nice to see some take the path of WoW, some to take the Path of UO, some take other paths I can't even imagine and whatever else may be.

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there are a few players who can pick an MMo in 2003, and in 2013 still be playing it. (props to eve for displaying when a character was created.)

there are many players who could never play an MMO for more than a few months.

the first group oesn't have much different expectations.

the second group has very different expectations in the sense that it HAS them. Back 'then' they didn't know MMOs exist.

add them up and you get something like 80% hype-and-unhappiness.

reality is that most people in this genre never belonged here. they got dragged in by advertising or word of mouth and have been spinning around trying to land somewhere to call home. For many it never happened.

worse, the market reacted to them trying to create them a home. It's what ended the Golden Age. They never did and never will have a home. How much an mmo twists and turns trying to get them one is not relevant to them...only to the others who might find themselves evicted.

does that answer the topic? expectatinos were lower and coming from fewer people. now they're high, coming from many.

but when you golden age mmo gamers get a game that you all been screaming about, you turn your back on it and dont show support. (Darkfall comes to mind, Vanguard, even your precious GW2.)

Funny... I had a home in MMORPGs called SWG. That is, until SOE took the "Welcome" rug from underneath existing players. We've been clamoring about that since 2005.

I know that it's never coming back, but we're still complaining about that series of unfortuate events for more than a handful of years now, still going.

THAT is support for the game, at least the game that existed before the massive changes. Don't be going around talking like "Golden Age MMO Gamers" don't support their titles.

Also, just to get this out of the way, there's a difference in supporting a game that we've been playing or clamored for, and supporting a game that was drastically changed from what its original vision was.

Also, as a consumer, I don't buy into half-a**ed products, regardless of what we're talking about. I have better things to spend my precious time and hard earned money on.

MMOExposed also fails to realize that just because an MMO comes out that has some of the elements we like, doesn't mean that we are going to like the game as a whole. There are a bunch of cookie cutter WoW games yet not everyone likes them all equally. So its a bit ridiculous to think that just because someone enjoyed an open PvP game like UO, they are going to go crazy over a totally different game such as Darkfall. Why he even brought up GW2 as its a WoW clone.... Ill never know.

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My expectation for UO was that it would be stable and polished given that they were charging a monthly fee. I didn't buy the game at launch as I was never an Ultima player, but I saw how bad the launch was and was glad I skipped it. I wasn't aware of EQ when it released.

I had low expectations for WOW but tried it on the open beta right before launch and loved it. It exceeded my expectations as I hated the gameplay of EQ when I watched friends play it.

Themeparks post WOW needed to meet the standards of WOW if I was going to pay a sub. The only game that didn't but still got me to pay was LOTRO based mostly on the IP and the fact that they didn't totally ruin the world. It was extremely boring to play though.

Themeparks today releasing without multiple factions, group finders, polished pvp, achievements and fluid gameplay are shooting themselves in the foot. They just don't "get it" and deserve their failure.

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i started playing mmos in general with ac, and have recently returned to my roots to play ac again and still love the game just as much as I did back in 2002 when i started it.

What made me love that game back then was the persistant world, housing in the real world not locked away into an instance. when you go into a dungeon there might be other people there. The community and the feeling that I was part of a world and that i could shape that world (even though I knew I couldnt, the feeling was there). My expectations as technology grew and mmo gaming grew is we would keep those worlds and that feeling and expand on it to have virtual worlds that you could change with your actions. wow came out and promised a game with a great war between two opposing factions as well as a war with evils in the world itself. it promised to take out alot of the boring tasks that were in previous mmos, it promised action instead of endless grinding just to get powerful enough to do something. no more slaying rats or mosswarts forever just to get somewhere. vanilla wow was a great compromise between too boring and too fast advancement. it still took a while to get somewhere in vanilla wow but you could still get there while maintaining a job and getting laid every so often.

then wow changed and catered to the add crowd and the crack baby crowd. everything was made easier, too easy, there is no longer a feeling of accomplishment in wow and current games. most games a hardcore gamer can get to max level in 4 days, a casual gamer in two weeks, a extremely casual gamer in 4 weeks.

mmos went from massively multiplayer to single player with other people and the boredom set in, the communities became non existent, the feeling of accomplishment dissappeared. that is what is wrong with current games imo.

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All I want from my MMO is something to keep me invested in my character development and interdependability.

I don't really have many specifics about it, but I loved pre-PoP EverQuest, even PoP wasn't too terrible although it could have been implemented a bit better to lessen the impact it had on the rest of the world. I know I see achievements and daillies and hings like them as sort of a meaningless filler to just keep you busy.

I know I enjoyed the slower progression, hell levels, the AA exp and the not over the top boosts you got from each one along with flags for higher PoP zones with the PoJ trials, BoT key quest ect, keys for Sebillis, Howling Stones, Veeshan's Peak and others.

Factions, dieties and everything that went along with it in EQ. Specific armor you could get crafted because of your diety, certain zones and quests you could explore and get because of your faction work (Velious armor comes to mind.)

Even the slower combat was nice. As a tank, instead of watching hotbars and cooldowns I'm watching for pathers, watching my party's HP, managing the positioning of the mob due to the push that was in the game and directing the puller on when to bring that next one if we're chain pulling and grabbing that 2nd mob while the 1st is still beating on me. Mobs don't even last long enough these days to be able to do any of that.

Crafting was even pretty usefull. Rings and earrings made by crafters were sought out by many that weren't in the highest teir raiding guilds, diety armor for Rallos Zek was pretty awesome as well just thinking off the top of my head.

Quests that were actually quests and not that feeling they're just easy tasks or running errands for this guy you just met who promises to give you this sweet breastplate after bringing him 10 giant wasp wings that, amazingly, only drop when you have that quest active. Much rather have similar quests like the Crushbone Belt, Bandit Sash or Gnoll Ear quests that pay bounties for proving you're killing an enemy along with coin and gaining faction.

Would also love to see the return of player run services. Need a lift? Wizard or Druid can help you with that, need to run somewhere a bit quicker? Pay up a few plat for a SoW from a Ranger, Druid or Shaman. Mana regen? Chanter can help ya there. The plus about these is that none of these buffs were absolutely necessary, but they did help quite a bit.

I guess to sum it up (wrote way more than I inteded) the biggest thing missing like I've said in a seperate post is the biggest thing missing from MMOs these days is conflict and adversity. Without much or any conflict or adversity, you really don't have a whole lot of accomplishment either. Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.

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I expected fear of the world/enviroment back in the golden age.

In Everquest I could get lost or go into a zone totally inappropriate for me. I would then have to corpse run a long way to get back my things only to be met with an xp penalty. We quickly learned that was bad.

The result was banding together with other players to try and brave the enviroment with shared effort. Sometimes that banding took the form of grouping to fight mobs together or sometimes advice about how to get to somewhere or a suggestion about where to go.

In Asheron's Call a system was set up to encourage players to associate with each other called the fealty and vasal system. I distinctly remember a few GM run world events where elemental monsters would raid the cities and the playerbase had to rally together to defeat them over the course of many days.

Now days everything is easy and I get a questmarker telling me exactly where to go and what to do next. Its effective I guess it just sucks the soul out of everything I liked about old school games. Now I can look online for the locations of everything in the game and I need not interact with anyone.

What happened to the reasons to positively interact with other players? When that comes back, we will be in our second golden age.